GEORGE OSBORNE’S post-election deficit reduction plans are a “suicide note” for the Tories, the Chancellor’s former Lib Dem deputy David Laws said yesterday.

In the latest skirmish of the governing coalition parties’ battle to offer voters a distinct pitch at the ballot box in May, the Schools Minister, who enthusiastically enforced the cuts as chief Treasury secretary in 2010, said the scale of proposed austerity was a “huge policy and strategic blunder.”

But Labour was not convinced by recent Lib Dem outrage.

Shadow chief secretary Chris Leslie said: “Two years ago David Laws called for deep cuts to public services to reduce the size of the state to 35 per cent (of national income).

“David Laws and the Lib Dems cannot run away from the Lib Dems’ record by trying to pretend that this government’s policies are nothing to do with them.”